| The house of Stanley supported the Royalist party during the
Civil War, and so the town and its people found themselves assisting their Lord
of the Manor. Tradition says that Cromwell entered the town, but this is hardly
probable. The Roundhead army advanced into the County from Yorkshire to encounter
a Royalist army, under General Langdale, assisted by Scottish soldiers under the
Duke of Hamilton. A battle was fought at Walton-le-dale, or Ribblesdale, on August
I7th, 1648. Three days prior to this, a large detachment entered Bury. Major General.
Lambert was in command of the Parliamentarian army. An entrenchment was thrown up at
the bend of the river near Walmersley, at a place now designated Castle Steads, and
from this place and a wood there, they battered down the walls of the castle. Another
body under Major Ashton appears to have marched over Cockey Moor plain, crossed the
river at the ford (Bury Bridge), and engaged in deadly conflict with their foes. On
one side of Bury Lane were enclosures for grain, orchards, and gardens. The produce
from these had not been garnered, and during the fight lay crushed and soaked in blood;
the owners or defenders dying on the desecrated lands. The town was captured; and two
days later the castle was destroyed and demolished. For more than a century afterwards
it was said that all grain grown on the fields of strife were streaked as if with gore,
owing to the baptism of blood the grounds had received. It is more than likely that the
name Redivals or Redivale sprang from this conflict.
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| For many years after the troublesome times just recorded the town
appears to have made little real progress. The chief industry still was the woollen
trade, and merchants still brought their wares to sell at the "fairs." About eighty
years after the destruction of the castle, a silent but mighty change in the textile
world commenced. John Kay, a Bury man, invented in 1733 his famous "Picking Peg,"
which made the shuttle in his hand-loom move quickly and accurately from side to
side, and so it got the name of the Fly Shuttle. Any weaver adopting this new
agency was able to do far more work than his fellows. Other advances quickly followed,
and slowly and surely that marvellous change was on the way which was to make
Lancashire goods supreme throughout the world.
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